Grammatical Variation and Change in Jersey English

Situated at the crossroads of dialectology, sociolinguistics and contact linguistics, this volume provides a first comprehensive description of the morphosyntactic inventory of the variety of English spoken on Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands. Based on a specially compiled corpus of spoken material containing both present-day sociolinguistic and archive data, it thereby reveals an intricate network of variation and change in this language-shift variety. The study adopts a cross-varietal approach for its analyses, which enables a first more systematic comparison between the Englishes spoken on Jersey, on its sister island Guernsey and beyond. In addition, it discusses the implications of identity aspects for language use in Jersey. The book will therefore be of major interest to any researcher or student working in the areas of language variation and change, language contact or dialectology and to those interested in sociolinguistic methodology and the relationships between language and identity.

“This is an excellent contribution to research in the field, a fine book that will definitely make its mark in the small body of literature on Channel Islands English. Scholars and students interested in the variety spoken on Jersey will be as interested in the book as researchers concerned with more general theoretical concerns of language contact, dialectology, and variationist sociolinguistics.”

“Lamenting the demise of enclave dialects is a romantic indulgence. Instead, we should be thankful when linguists like Anna Rosen get to the enclaves at the transitional time and manage to leave a solid record of what it once was like as well as what it is becoming.”

“This book is a most welcome addition to the World Englishes literature. Rosen uses her succinct overview of the morphosyntactic characteristics of this variety (even though there is no description of phonetics and phonology or the lexicon, which is regrettable) to also discuss issues related to contact linguistics, variationist sociolinguistics and dialect typology. The volume is both documentation and application of sociolinguistic data to various fields of historical and synchronic linguistics — in other words, a wonderful demonstration how immensely valuable lesser-known varieties of English are, for dialectologists and sociolinguists alike.”

Daniel Schreier, University of Zurich, English World-Wide 37(2): 221-224. 2016

2019.
In Linguistic Perspectives on a Variable English Morpheme,
► pp. 237 ff.

Schreier, Daniel

2019.
In The Cambridge Handbook of World Englishes,
► pp. 384 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 24 may 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
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